murphy-slaw's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Allez les bleus! ....d'oh We're baaaaaaaaaaack! D and I just got back from our first, but hopefully not last, European adventure. To start, we headed to Ireland for a wedding. 2 friends of ours from Seattle - the bride hailing from the merry ol' land of Tir-na-nog. The wedding and reception were held 60 miles outside of Dublin, and were reachable only by cab or car. So, we took the plunge and rented a car. (irish accent )Begorrah! What an adventure. (/irish accent) Holy crap is more like it. We decided I should drive because I suck with a map and would surely get us lost in the backcountry and we would likely end up in some field counting sheep. So, D did navigation, and I screamed in terror for 60 miles trying to drive on the left side of the road on the right side of the car. Screwy screwy Irish and your bassackwards ways! :) The wedding was amazing and was everything I ever imagined an Irish wedding would be. It was held in a Catholic church that sat on a site that had been a church for over 1000 years. I don't think anything in the US is 1000 years old that isn't made out of rock. Across the way there was a sweeping view of what I would call "traditional Irish countryside". Granted I know very very little about Irish culture and history sans the Guinness, but in my mind, this is what I had pictured Ireland to be like. With sheep. The wedding was a full mass, and clodagh looked stunning. The reception was held in an old hotel that was of some significance to Clodagh and pals. Apparently she spent a lot of time there in the pub playing pool and socializing in years past. We were treated to bagpipes to start (decidedly Scottish but still cool) - The guy only played 2 songs - Amazing Grace and some other Irish song I didn't know. I requested Madonna's "Like a Virgin" but got shot down. Then there were Irish dancers, followed by a band, DJ and Guinness Guinness Guinness. At one point my friend Prasadi and I were trying to explain to the maid of honor that her job was to make sure Clodagh had a drink in her hand at all times. We joked that she was to be sneaky about it and shove the drink into Clodagh's hand when she was distracted or in a conversation with someone else. The maid of honor was thus dubbed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Guinness". The reception lasted til 5 in the morning. At first, I was all "I'm hardcore! It's 5 am!" - I haven't really been able to party like that since college. I prefer sleepy time now to throwin' 'em back until dawn. Then I remembered that it was really 11 pm my time, so I wasn't really hardcore anymore. Sigh. Anyway, then it was on to Paris. We drove back to the airport through Dublin this time and D was the driver and I the navigator. Yeah...that could have gone a little better. I didn't scream nearly as much this time though. In Paris we stayed at the Hilton Arc de Triumph. Which, as the name implies, was right down the rue from the Arc de Triumph. We slept til noon each day and then sight saw until dusk at which time we would get cleaned up and head out to a french dinner. We covered all the basics - Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triumph, Le Lourve, Notre Dame. One day we hiked up this random hill in Paris to this little church called Sacre Couer (Sacred Heart) and looked out over the city. It was beautiful and the church was, in our opinion, much nicer than Notre Dame. Granted, ND is way way way bigger and grand, but this one was better lit, smaller, and just seemed more real. There were about 7000 LESS tourists there too. One of the nights a friend of D's that lives and works in Paris took us to dinner at his favorite place. The guys running it were Indians, but according to Olivier, the food was very good and very French. While we were there a group of about 20 military guys came in and sat down and proceeded to get stinking drunk and sing old French ditties. D and I thought it was hilarious to see a bunch of what was the equivalent of French Army guys sucking down bottle after bottle of Rose Wine. You just wouldn't see that in the states. The guys we were with were a little embarrassed by the ruckus the military dudes were creating, but D and I loved it. Later Olivier and pals took us bowling at a "french blacklight bowling establishment". It was pretty much like in the states except not air conditioned and everything was in french. Oh and I got to wear my bowling shoes without socks. Ack. Overall, we had pretty good luck with muddling our way through France knowing very little of the language, and didn't encounter the stereotypical snooty french person very often. One night, however, we tried this hip place for dinner that D had read about. Upon entering, a dark cloud descended over us. I should have known by the sleek surroundings that we were in for some serious attitude, but we wandered in like a couple of happy go lucky labradors and were all goofy and friendly with the modelesque french hostess. The conversation went something like this: Le hot french hostess with tatoo on her neck: Bon Soir madame e monsiuer...blah blah blah something something french french oooh la la. Me (happily): Parlez-vous anglais? (do you speak english?) Le hot french hostess with tatoo on her neck: Sigh. Yes. Me (happily): Oh, well 2 for dinner if you have availability. Le hot french hostess with tatoo on her neck: Do you have a reservaSHION? Me (happily): Em...no actually. We were hoping that... Le hot french hostess with tatoo on her neck: I 'ave space at ze bar... vud you liyeek to zee eet? D (nicely): Pardon me madame? I didn't hear the last part. Le hot french hostess with tatoo on her neck: Exasperated sigh. Then slowly and more pronounced I ave...space at... ze bar... vud you liyeek... to zee... eet? ** I should interject here, and tell you a little about this particular sigh. D and I have come to call it the "french sigh". As she did it, you could tell that she was mustering up all her inner strength in order not to explode and start wailing on D. Seriously, it was that bad. Me and D: Um...oui? So we were "seated" at the bar. I use the term seated loosely here as it entailed the hostess slapping down our menus and storming back up to her station at the door. D and I kind of just stared in horror and fascination. Then came the waiter. Ye Gods. Talk about adhering to a stereotype. The guy literally THREW our flatware at us and slapped our plates down in front of us. Thus was the theme for the service for the entire evening. Tip is included in the meal too, so we were deprived of the pleasure of leaving him a 20 cent tip as a thank you. The meal was incredible though, so at least we had that. We had heard that service can be that way in France, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. It's not like we were behaving like the gun-totin' slack jawed mouth breathing American stereotypes. I like to think that D and I can be somewhat classy and refined when we try. Yes I KNOW I burp loudly, but that is for comic effect only and is not a measure of my ability to be classy. Terd. The World Cup semifinals game happened while we were in Paris too. France vs. Portugal. For those that don't know, the World Cup is a big freakin' deal everywhere on the planet except for the US - which is weird because we have a team that plays in it as well. It's the Super Super Bowl for the rest of the world and only happens every 4 years. If France won this game it would go to the finals against Italy. So that evening we traveled to our friend Olivier's house and hung out with his friends. We loved the whole experience because we got to get away from the tourist traps and actually experience a little French culture. These were just normal people like me and D (pause for laughter) and the only real difference was that they spoke french. They were all really nice too, and tried to make us feel welcome. So, France won, and we then traveled to the Champs-Elysees and walked with huge crowds (3 million plus people) down toward the Arc de triumph cheering, throwing fire crackers, and just being all around rowdy and excited. There were countless camera crews and people trying to capture the whole experience, and entire French police force onsite to keep everything in check. It was so freakin' cool. D bought a footlong hotdog. And thus concludes our European adventure.-MS is moving to France 12:46 p.m. - 2006-07-10 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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